Structural interpretation of seismic images is a process involving an interpreter recognizing the temporal and spatial relationships of reflection events of wiggle traces shown on vertical sections and horizontal slices. Thus a robust structural interpretation requires reliance on imaging critical reflection events of regular amplitude wiggle traces, and on an interpreter's ability to identify such events.
Although attempts have been made to enhance structural features by extracting seismic texture attributes, most attribute extraction algorithms “destroy” the valuable phase information of reflection wiggle traces, and such information is critical to structural visualization and interpretation. For example, the coherence cube is effective in highlighting faults and other geological boundaries. However, such enhancement is achieved at the expense of sacrificing the structurally valuable phase information of wiggle traces. For this reason, the coherence cube has significantly limited an interpreter's ability for structural geometry and kinematic analysis, a fundamental component of robust structural interpretation and successful hydrocarbon exploration.
Regular image processing, such as edge enhancement, frequency filter, and color editing for phase and amplitude, have been effective in enhancing structural features. For example, a color mapping function, defined by a symmetrical increase of gray level from black at zero-crossing to white at both peak and trough, is particularly effective in enhancing the visibility of zero-crossings of the wiggle trace and thus is helpful in visualizing structural fabrics; however, all these operations are just visual enhancement of amplitude samples and little pattern discriminatory analysis is performed for improved structural visualization and interpretation.
It is thus apparent that there is a need in the art for an improved method of analyzing seismic data to better delineate structural geometry and better understand kinematics of deformational fabrics in the subsurface. The present invention meets these and other needs in the art.